Chapter Text
‘‘I welcome you, Miss Henshaw-’’
Albus cut himself off with a sly smile.
‘‘Clara, as member of our staff. Minerva is head of your department, but for anything I can do, feel free to come to me.’’
‘‘Perhaps for some remembrance, professor-’’ at sight of Albus’ expression, she amended, inclining her head, ‘‘Albus? If you wouldn’t oppose to that?’’
Albus hummed. ‘‘Will you make me feel old?’’
Clara gave a chuckle. ‘‘Why not make each other feel young.’’
‘‘You are young, my dear.’’ Albus whispered conspiratorially to her.
Clara laughed then, a silent and introvert thing that had Albus looking at her through his spectacles.
‘‘You are as old as you feel. Ah- ah- ah.’’ She calmly raised a finger. ‘‘Don’t go denying this. I know for a fact you’ve lived by it all your life.’’
‘‘You have developed some gall over the years, haven’t you?’’
The girl- woman smiled once more, as if to call him out for what he was doing. But then her eyes fell again, her smile withered into something smaller and more introvert again; responsive to some inner, self-deprecating musing of her own.
‘‘I’ll leave you, professor.’’
‘‘Albus, now.’’ He wore his smile.
Clara met his eyes, inclined her head and left him.
Clara had been his student, his apprentice – one of the last apprentices he had taken. She mastered transfigurations and gained some experience in teaching by assisting in a few magical schools around Europe for the decade following her graduation. She had missed the first Wizarding War. She had returned to England last year and when a professor had retired, she had petitioned for his position in Hogwarts.
She was unmarried, childless, friendless upon returning to the land that was her home. In no other way but name, it seems.
Out of place that girl was, always had been. A Slytherin in manners, a Hufflepuff at heart, a Ravenclaw on the mind. As a student she had been distant and lost in her head. In her apprenticeship she had immersed with all her heart and had practically rendered his job uncalled for. That girl wasn’t one to be stirred, even by the gentle influence of a teacher she respected.
She reminded him a bit of Newt Scamander, apart from the nervousness of course.
No, on their first meeting after all these years, her manners were assured, without displaying over confidence. She felt joy, fondness, nostalgia upon seeing her old professor again, but she had ruled over it perfectly. It had only shown in her choice of words and in the softness of her eyes. Albus had been touched, if not a bit bored of such pretences. He had come to enjoy the simple, straightforward attitudes these days. A hundred years of playing hide and seek with the world and yourself can do that. A hundred years, and wars and battles beyond count. The last war had been put on hold however, Tom’s reappearance was lurking somewhere ahead, but for a year now calm reigned.
Still Albus was perfectly aware of how many things had to be settled before the madman returned to finish what he had started.
------
Trelawney was rumbling on about the future in the Staff Room again.
Albus met the teacher’s eyes one by one. He smiled and reassured Minerva’s exasperation, he enjoyed Severus’ disgust and curling lips. He joined eyes with Flitwick as the latter shook his head and nodded in politeness, he noted Pomona and Sinistra converse in whispers. His eye fell on Clara to his right; the girl- woman’s-
Albus sighed discreetly at himself. Clara’s face would be unreadable to most. In the way she rested her chin on her interlaced fingers, her elbows braced at the table in front of her, she seemed immersed to the seer’s remarks and yet amusement was discreetly colouring her face. And yet, her eyes seemed lost far away, her brow was slightly creased. And yet on closer inspection, her eyes weren’t far away exactly, behind them danced all sorts of thoughts.
Albus send forth his mind and gently asked for entry, pretending once again to not be taken aback with how easily Clara allowed him in; even if in meant the edges of her mind. Before her eyes had turned to his face, Albus was in and whispering around her consciousness.
‘You’re cooking up a reference for this.’
It was not a question and maybe that was why Clara’s eyes brightened up, her lips quivered slightly, as they contained her amusement, her fondness.
‘Iliad.’
Albus caught her whisper and his brows shot up in thought and acknowledgement.
He leaned in, backing away from the intimacy such a guarded girl kept granting him so easily and side-glancing instead at the familiarity of her eyes.
‘‘Calchas?’’
Clara smiled to herself, but with Albus gone from her mind, her thoughts were her own.
‘‘Always ready for the sacrifice of a daughter, aren’t you?’’
The pained kind of fondness that coloured her tone produced a sad smile in Albus’ lips. He watched as Clara searched his face. Her gaze snapped to the room for a second and she tilted her head sideways and closer to him.
‘‘Why not Cassandra.’’
She met his eyes again, just as Albus straightened up and hid the fond, amused surprise dancing around his mouth behind his steepled fingers.
Paris’ sister who warned that he must not steal Helen, who foretold how it would bring destruction, and it did; it brought forth the War of Troy. Calchas ordered the slaughter of Iphigenia and people heeded him because he was a celebrated Seer. Cassandra warned but no one listened. Where does Sybil fall in this category?
Clara didn’t know about the prophecy, and yet… and yet, her musing was to the point. She saw Sybil for what it was, a woman with good intentions. She didn’t rush to condemn her to the opportunistic nature of Calchas’ norm, however sceptical her mind was when it came to seers and divination. Albus stole one more glance to this girl that had not allowed her mind shallow her to the dark pits of nihilism, not completely at least. Things like that made life seem bright again, it spoke of hope for the next generation and Albus relished them from a distance.
Three years had passed since Clara had settled on the school. In time, they had fallen back on their peculiar kind of camaraderie that had proceeded from their spending so much time together in her 7th year. She was a conversationalist, that girl, she could turn a boring subject interesting, with a few choice quips and the right questions. Not that she ever bothered to, back then. And now, with her colleagues she was polite, friendly with some, but still detached. In the ten years of her absence she hadn’t learnt what it meant to co-exist with other people without shedding off your armour. She was a locked box, an unbreachable fortress. Well, except with him.
Maybe it was their apprenticeship together, or the common academical interest, a plain where Clara had always seemed more at ease than any other terrain. Maybe it had been his own talent for unlocking minds and secrets- no, he hadn’t used anything too intrusive in Clara’s case. He had kept out of her mind, back then, for their camaraderie’s sake.
And really he had no reason to.
Albus himself had often relaxed in her presence, all those long hours she spent researching and experimenting. Silences were long but not uncomfortable, and breaking them was never too loud or annoying. She understood, that girl, she understood many things her peers didn’t, that people hardly ever do. And that had deprived her of the chance to live a happy, fulfilling life like most of humanity does. Another victim of her own square reason that protected her tender heart as if it were made of glass. And perhaps it was… perhaps it is.
Because in thirteen years, Clara had not changed. Albus couldn’t tell at first whether it was his own wish to find her the same as before, as if that would trick time from passing in its usual relentless way.
That one year with Clara and her inquiring mind had helped him move on from his teaching days. Her apprenticeship had given him one last year dipped in the pleasures of teaching, as he got used to the position of Headmaster. The war was already starting then, in the early seventies. But responsibility and worry – of his own infliction of course, he wasn’t delusional to blame anyone else – were not taxing enough to keep him from enjoying those little pleasures. Neither did they occupy enough time to make him unable to enjoy a bit more time with her than what was strictly necessary. Or even appropriate between a headmaster and a student, even if Clara was an adult at the time.
But they had fun, the two of them. They read and laughed, Albus had even given in and debated her at a few memorable occasions. He should have felt old, he had thought in hindsight, he should have felt old being with a girl so young and fresh. He should have been guilty of stealing her some of her time and energy, just to his enjoyment, for the sake of remembrance of days long past.
But Clara had enjoyed this strange camaraderie too, he knew. They had never explicitly called each other out on it. They had danced on the borders of impropriety and held it close, a secret between fellow spirits, between friends even. Theirs was an impropriety of mental intimacy and nothing else. Albus had made sure of this, that the girl wouldn’t misunderstand the openness that sometimes he allowed himself in her presence. Nothing too open of course, he hadn’t shared secrets or pains with her in any explicit way. They had just danced around with words and meanings, ironies and sighs.
No other kind of impropriety had taken place in those secluded evenings, but that of two tired people laying down their burdens for a while, secure in each other’s presence. Albus’ own frustrations in love would have discouraged him, even if Clara wasn’t a student. Albus had cast the physical aside for decades now and he was perfectly content with that. And once he knew the girl’s mind was away from that as well, he just allowed himself to discreetly bask on the nostalgic serenity of their shared secret.
------
‘‘Your turn.’’ Clara slurred a bit, on a Christmas Eve four years after she joined them, his office fireplace crackling merrily in front of them. She was bracing her back on the armchair’s front, and made to fill his cup again with the bottle of mead she had grasped with fumbling fingers.
‘‘Are you serving me, so you avoid to refill yours? If that’s the case I applaud your good sense.’’
Albus should have never allowed it to escalate to this, with him resulting with a young girl- woman- person, young-ish Clara with sprawled feet on his fireplace mat and a mind hazy with mead, but he had lost himself in their game of questions, in nostalgia, in serenity. Clara was drunk before he knew it. Around the cup he was holding out for Clara to refill, there was a messy bundle of limbs. His hand holding the cap, Clara’s hand keeping his hand and the cup in place and his other hand keeping it all together from the outside. His eyes were taking in her concentrated expression, her eyes narrowed, her head tilted, her bottom lip sucked between teeth.
‘‘You’ll have a hangover tomorrow.’’ Albus remarked, crossing his feet as his back came to rest on the armchair again.
Clara’s face fell and she fell back on the armchair’s front with it. Her shoulders were slumped and her familiar eyes, brown eyes, nothing impressive, were haunted by a misery familiar as well, not from her but from himself. Albus was taken aback by her sudden graveness. She had never lost composure like this, as much as she let it slip sometimes in his presence, nowadays. Her eyes, made more beautiful by some kind of pain only she knew for sure while Albus could only guess, landed on him. Her gaze caressed his face with the usual softness she reserved for him. And Albus-
Albus just stared back feeling more incapacitated than the meagre amount of alcohol he had consumed would justify.
‘‘What time is it?’’ Her voice came out a bit hoarse but with a blunt kind of sharpness that made Albus blink out of his stupor.
‘‘A bit past two.’’ His own voice came out normal and perfectly collected.
He watched as Clara blinked and blinked, the information waking her up. Her expression closed off a bit, although her eyes didn’t lose the beauty of their pain.
‘‘I’m imposing on you.’’ She made to stand and Albus let her.
She was, wasn’t she? It was past two and they had been together for the last six hours. What could possibly justify anything more? What had kept him that long already? How come he hadn’t found a way to kick her out earlier and close himself off of the living world as was his usual practice?
The question why did she stay, remained blissfully unaddressed.
Clara was uneasy on her feet and standing up took longer than it normally would. Enough for Albus’ numb brain to wonder all that and enjoy the awkward, amusing grace she displayed, characteristical of a person with ease of movement that was abated by alcohol. Yes, Clara had always been content in her own skin, and it showed in the way she held herself. Only now her unsteady feet made her sway towards him as she stood. Albus’ hands grasped her waist by instinct and before he could get up for his seat and steady her, Clara had landed on his lap.
Quickly realising the situation, she grimaced and darted out of it, taking hold of the armchair’s sides to steady herself.
‘‘Sorry.’’ She smiled in amused ruefulness. ‘‘I’ll go now. Don’t worry.’’ She waved a hand, straightened her back. ‘‘I’ll find my way. Always do.’’ She shrugged a shoulder as her last word came out broken by a silent chuckle, while her feet were already moving her to the door.
Albus stood up. ‘‘Clara.’’ He called out and Clara turned her whole body towards him, a daft mockery of a smile stretching her lips, her hand bracing her against the back of his empty armchair. She hummed inquisitively and her sight made him snort. ‘‘Sit.’’ He threw her a look over his spectacles, which he didn’t wear, now that he thought about it.
But the effect was unadulterated all the same, because Clara raised a brow at him, her face stretching with drunk, playful defiance. Before she managed to slip away, Albus took her hand and pulled her gently towards him and around the armchair.
‘‘No, no, no, you need your peace.’’
‘‘Too much peace.’’ Albus mused. ‘‘It doesn’t do good to the joints in my age.’’ He placed a careful hand on her shoulder and guided her to sit in his armchair, the warmness of her skin radiating through the fabric.
Albus removed himself to the other armchair and flicked his wand for coffee. He needed it too, judging by the numbness that had shrouded his normally buzzing mind. Clara was rubbing her face with her hands.
‘‘I shouldn’t be here, not now.’’ Nevertheless, she eased her back to the chair and crossed her legs, as if in an effort to mimic his composed collected state from before. ‘‘And for good reason.’’
‘‘And what reason is that?’’
She took the preferred cup of coffee, her fingers brushing his, leaving hot imprints on his skin.
‘‘I’m this close,’’ she limpily held index and thumb so close they almost rested on each other, ‘‘to losing it.’’
She kept her eyes to the fireplace while Albus was musing on how much more could she lose it than she already had.
‘‘I’m too drunk now. I can’t be too unguarded in your presence.’’
She swallowed, her eyes never leaving the flames, her face a neutral mask, apart from the eyes, the beautiful eyes made ever more beautiful with the pain. The pain of all she is, of all she can’t be, never has be. Albus knew those eyes and they weren’t young. They couldn’t be young, because if they were, then so were his.
‘‘You don’t trust me.’’
Albus kept a straight face, even though he was feeling too old to be facing her now. She was a clever girl, of course she didn’t trust him. And quite right too.
‘‘Oh, I do.’’
Bitter mirth coloured her voice and Albus was staring at her eyes before he knew it. Dark beautiful eyes but with a light, a softness, a sweetness you’d never expect from them.
‘‘Then you’re not as smart as I thought.’’
‘‘Perhaps.’’ Clara smiled and turned her eyes to the flames. ‘‘Perhaps it hardly matters. I trust you with my life, Albus, because it’s meaningless. I have enough brain, even too much brain to realise that everything I do is meaningless. When you have overanalysed everything, reality just deflates. I cannot understand, I have never been able to pinpoint one thing that is not meaningless. And all the other people, that’s what it keeps me going. Their beauty, their grandeur. The way they make meaning out of the mess, out of the arbitrary. It’s amazing, isn’t it? The biggest gift a normal person can give to another is to trust them with their lives. It’s the biggest thing, the biggest honour. But what do you do with a life that is worthless to the person it belongs to? Does it hold some value still?’’
Albus wished she would join his gaze, but she didn’t. But he wasn’t sure if he wanted to pull her out of her numb state anyway. This night had turned out to be something different, something far more intimate than he had found himself in for years. He drunk thirstily from it, setting the thought that he was exploiting her vulnerable state aside. Albus was a greedy man and secrets were the most precious currency after all.
‘‘I have thought hard these past ten-something years.’’ She was saying, with her face almost blank and her voice flat. ‘‘What trusting you with my life means. I have no delusions of who you are, I think. I have seen it in your words, the way you see the world. All these times we debated, you and me, I listened; I understood. Your hard romantic cynicism. It made me taste the illusion that I’m not alone. That there is another person out there who knows what meaningless means.’’ She chuckled, her face stretching around her own pun.
‘‘If you had to,’’ she retuned to flatness again, ‘‘you would sacrifice my life and your heart would bleed with it. And just for the knowledge, for the certainty of it I would do it. I would give it willingly just to see how your heart bleeds with it. Because it’s one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed. How you can still do what you’re supposed to, something you know in your mind that has no meaning, and still feel the pain as if it had. And in your heart it has. It has meaning.’’
Albus had been staring at her harshly, unblinkingly, with his heart seized by something cold. But Clara hadn’t even spared a glance at him.
‘‘Supposed to?’’ His tone came out bland with doubt.
‘‘You think you are. You think society expects you to. You do it because no one else can. It is rare, it is pure and it is beautiful.’’ She whispered in one breath, her gaze fixed on the flames.
‘‘I treat people like cattle.’’ His tone came out more cold than he expected, but he pressed on. ‘‘I would treat you like cattle, had you been in the Order. I would have given you too many orders and not enough information and I would expect you to trust me, while I do not trust you.’’
She was an open wound in front of him and yet he couldn’t help prodding her, just to see if her words had merit after all. But he might have as well been poking a corpse.
‘‘Precisely. How else can it happen. Meaning comes when you find ways to put chaos in some order. People put chaos in an order with rules and norms. With good and bad and right and wrong. They fear hell and search for utopia, but they do not see that if utopia came to be, if everything was perfect, nothing would evolve. We flourish through problems, through destruction, through solutions. How can something be born if something else doesn’t die. The continuous flow of it is what keeps energy in existence. But if you trust people with this truth they crumble. Chaos is so strange, so unknown; it’s where their nightmares come from. They want to be cattle; they want to have a shepherd that will know all the unnerving truths but shield them from them, while they live their lives in a relative comfort that they maintain on sheer will alone. That’s why religions and governments and etiquettes and norms exist. But being cattle doesn’t abort your beauty. Those machinations are so intriguing.
‘‘If the cattle wanted to know, why do they not search for these truths themselves? You spoke of an order,’’ her head turned slightly to his direction, but her eyes did not. ‘‘If your members wanted to know the truth, then why didn’t they search for it? Why didn't they wonder, philosophize in the first place? Why don’t they hone their reason more, so they won’t miss on small important details? Most of the times we don’t dare to look at the stars, because their vastness haunts us later.
‘‘They make us feel small, and maybe we are. But the beauty, the art of it is to turn small things into big and important. That’s a gift the cattle know too well and the shepherd is only capable of mimicking. Your life is empty, it’s all a façade. Mine is too, but at least you’re trying to help, you have the courage to try and help. I don’t want to help. I don’t believe anyone needs help and I bask in the safeness of it. I admire you, Albus. Not as much as I do the cattle, but my admiration for you comes from the heart, as well as the mind. Comes because I understand you more intimately than I could ever understand them.
‘‘And if that makes me too arrogant or too dramatic, who cares.’’ Her eyes trailed to the ceiling as her head slumped back.
‘‘I’m drunk. I can go back to pretending humility tomorrow. I can give you my life, but it is worthless. I can give you my truth in the expense of my ego…’’ She sighed, the beginnings of a smile upturning her lips. ‘‘It turns out I have something of value to offer after all. Small petty thing, but it’s the best I can do. My ugly, superior, arrogant self who thinks I know better than everyone else. Now you’ve seen my foolishness and I cannot hide. Not that I ever could, not from you. At least it’s nice to be free once in a while.
‘‘You’ll remember all this tomorrow, won’t you.’’ Her head slumped to her chest, she closed her eyes as if in pain. ‘‘I won’t. I’ll make sure I won’t. Please keep me blissfully ignorant of it, or I fear I’ll never face you again.’’
Clara stood up with a sigh and staggered out of the room without seeing the tears in Albus’ eyes.
------
‘‘I do take joy in being right.’’
He settled down for breakfast, as Clara continued downing coffee like water; with every discretion, of course.
He passed her a vial under the table. He stole a sly glance at her, as Clara rolled her eyes and gulped it down, a reluctant smile on her lips.
Albus was composed the next day, he wore his superiority like a royal cloak. He hadn’t been the one who opened up last night, after all. Clara had saved him from it. What she had said about him were her own words, her own ideas. He had parted with nothing of himself.
And whether Clara had full memory of everything that happened, he didn’t know and couldn’t find out. She knew something had happened, of course, and discreetly kept her distance. But Albus made sure to coax her back into their usual distanced proximity. Two planets on orbit around each other. Never coming too close, never letting go, because if they did, they fell and crumpled.
He coaxed her with small smiles and winks in neutral contexts, he coaxed her with carefully balanced words in irrelevant topics.
And after a while, when her words had properly sank in, why not, he coaxed with discreet, featherlight touches. Touches that said I’m here, I do not shy away. You hold knowledge that hits too close for comfort, you accept things you probably shouldn’t, but I’m alright with it. I… like it.
I… like being accepted and I want you to know you’re accepted as well.
Decades had passed since the last time he had engaged in such a simple interaction as this.
His hands never lingered, neither did they press down. They just passed through and winked, much like the rest of him was doing. And when Clara eyed him, her beautiful brown eyes heavy with playful suspicion, he shot her his best grandfatherly look.
------
On a cold night during the next winter, Albus was leaving Aberforth’s pub. He was just turning into Hogsmeade’s main street when someone collided with him. His hands went to seize the person’s shoulders, keep himself up and them from falling, when warm brown eyes, alight with agitation met his under her hood.
‘‘Public hazard?’’ He teased with a straight face, just as Clara smirked and peeped down the road from where she had come from.
Albus, aware of how easily her hands had settled on his arms and showed no intention of leaving, took it upon himself to back off just as Clara hastened to hide behind the corner and took him with her. He went with a sigh.
‘‘Clara, my dear, are you playing hide and seek?’’
‘‘An adult, societal version of it, yes.’’ She replied with an apologetic expression. ‘‘Sorry, I just-’‘
‘‘Ran from a young lover perhaps?’’ Albus interrupted, extending his elbow to guide them to the school from side streets and not the main one. ‘‘Are young men so abominable these days?’’
‘‘Oh, please.’’ She scoffed, looping her hand on his. ‘‘I deplore your insinuation. Me and young men are two concepts that have years to… overlap.’’ She shot him a meaningful look and smiled at his chuckle.
‘‘Young ladies, perhaps?’’ Albus side-glanced her.
‘‘Yes, but for no amorous reason. I bumped into some old schoolmates and wasn’t in the mood.’’
‘‘Ah, mundane, then… Pity. I craved for some fresh, steaming gossip.’’
‘‘Then why don’t you go ahead and provide it.’’
Albus turned to her with a brow ticked up. ‘‘You cannot possibly be asking…?’’
‘‘Whether you had a rendez-vous?’’
‘‘Oh, please, it’s been years since I last-’'
‘‘Overlapped?’’ Uttered Clara with sugar in her tone.
Albus made to frown at her in his professorly way, but Clara’s sly expression made it crumble. They navigated Hogsmeade’s narrow streets, arm in arm.
‘‘How long really?’’ She asked casually, expectant for an answer.
‘‘Oh, you’d feel sorry for me.’’
‘‘Alright, I’ll say first.’’
A pause stretched and Albus felt her eyes on him. ‘‘Do you really have to?’’ he frowned.
‘‘Might I remind you that you started on this topic?’’
Albus gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘‘Yours cannot be longer than mine.’’
‘‘Since I allowed a stuffy blond German deflower me in an alley-’‘ Albus choked on a snort, ‘‘twelve years ago.’’
‘‘Well.’’ He gazed ahead as another blond German boy, not stuffy at all, came to his mind. ‘‘Mine was on the summer of… eighteen,’’ he intoned, ‘‘ninety-seven.’’ He turned to relish her reaction, to find only a grimace of amused bewilderment.
‘‘And your balls haven’t exploded.’’
Albus chuckled. ‘‘You do enjoy crude language, don’t you?’’
‘‘Oh, why not? Why not speak simply for once. It’s only sex, after all.’’
Albus held the gaze of this person whose love life was in a way worse than his own, and huffed. ‘‘Only.’’
Clara smiled in that introvert way of hers. And Albus tore his eyes from her, wondering again what he was doing here. With the warmth of her body on his side, and her hand looped in his. As if she heard his thoughts, Clara untangled their limps and went to stop in front of him.
‘‘Do you miss it?’’ She searched his face with that fondness she only had for him. Albus placed his hands in the pockets of his coat and searched back.
‘‘Love? Sex? Physical contact?’’ He enquired, his tone mimicking her silent one on its own accord.
Clara frowned and hummed. ‘‘I should have probably asked what do you miss.’’
She didn’t though, she left it dangling, providing him with a way out.
‘‘I miss being held. Cuddled.’’
Clara huffed a laugh at his choice of word. His eyes searched the sky, as a part of him laughed at the old foolish man he had become.
‘‘Kissed, caressed. Small tokens of being accepted, I suppose.’’ His gaze settled on her with a sad smile. Now he had paid her back in kind, for that night a year ago.
Clara had lost her smile and was looking at him with an intensity he had never witnessed before. It felt like something had broken inside her, her gaze was fixed with an unknown intent. And when she took a step towards him, leaving only a hair’s distance between their bodies, he didn’t step back. Not even when her hand rose to his face, with a slowness that could only be deliberate, not even then did he step back. He almost hoped she would do it, she would lay her skin on his. And when she did cup his cheek, it took him more self-control than he would enjoy admitting to not lean into her touch.
Instead he kept his eyes on her beautiful brown ones and whispered. ‘‘Out of pity?’’
He almost hoped those words would faze her, but they only made those old eyes even more deep and beautiful. She brushed a thumb against his cheek and the shivering sigh that escaped him made his eyes almost flutter close.
‘‘Out of acceptance.’’
And then his eyes did fell shut, blocking off the world and everything but her touch. Her touch that didn’t come unfounded. Because the devil had opened up to him, she had paved the road before she dared out of her fortress.
‘‘Acceptance cannot turn physical.’’ He bit his tongue and congratulated it at the same time.
‘‘In whose mind?’’ Her other hand joined in his face, and they fit there like they were the pieces that had been lost. He opened his eyes then, to find somewhere to hold on and put an end to this. But her eyes that were the wrong age, that seemed almost out of place with the rest of her, didn’t help. Her pinkies dived under his ears, caressed the soft skin there.
Soft, sagged skin.
Clara swayed closer, her eyes falling to his lips.
‘‘Let me take you to bed.’’
Her breath tingled his skin, her heavy eyelids haunted his mind with all sorts of ideas. He relaxed toward her full red lips, pinched by the cold. Their swell was familiar, the way she used them liberating. He was tilting his head and he couldn’t recognise himself. Clara was trembling, her shaky exhales were burning him.
‘‘No.’’ He uttered, so close to her, he could imagine how intoxicating her warm wetness would be.
Clara raised her eyes on him with something even more broken in the beauty of her eyes. Her mouth snapped to a smirk, lopsided and bitterly amused.
‘‘I will ask two more times.’’
Her hands slided of him with an unwillingness he couldn’t overlook anymore and he heard, and then I’ll respect your choice.
‘‘And then I’ll stop.’’ She said instead because she had her self-assurance to protect.
She stepped away from him with something gentle in her features, something akin to pride. She extended an elbow to him this time, her gaze lost ahead. Albus had never navigated those waters where sex was considered something small and insignificant. That you had gotten the hang of it so well, you could shoulder giving or accepting a refusal as if it were no big deal. Well, a night of firsts.
He looped his arm with hers and met her fondness with his own.
------
After-images of that night haunted him in boring staff meetings and long nights. Ηe felt her closeness while speakers raged on in the Wizengamot. Let her words sink in while he absently petted Fawkes. Thought of her eyes and wondered why. Though of her request and thought why not.
Nothing changed on the way she held herself around him. Lingering looks and secret smiles were the same as before. Their quiet nights where he smashed her over a chess board came and went as if nothing had happened. Except for some times, when she thought he wasn’t looking, he thought he caught her eye on him more heavy than before. Heavy with questions? Ridicule? Fondness? Lust?
She had trembled that night. Trembled as she held her lips away, expectant for his answer. But how could that be? No, it must have been the cold, or nervousness or an effort to hold back disgust. It was all a plan, a farce, a joke, a conspiracy.
And then, of course, it wasn’t.
------
The second time she asked, it was in the staff room, in one more staff meeting where it always took too long for the teachers to calm down. Tea being served, chit-chat honoured, dislike quickly gathered behind politeness. Clara had looked at him from across the table, she had raised her eyes slowly from the ground and found his. And the expression in them tipped him off.
Within a blink he penetrated her open mind, always open, how can it be? Her face was calm and neutral but her eyes screamed the question to him.
‘Will you let me take you to bed?’
His gaze fell on her lips before he whispered a half-hearted no.
‘Trying to take me by surprise?’ he shot back just as he left her mind and folded back into himself. A place that seemed colder and colder as weeks passed.
Her mask broke, as she lowered her eyes. Something close to a child-like smile filled her face with tenderness and a blush. The sight was so irregular, a couple of colleagues noticed it and frowned. She raised her eyes quickly though and arched an eyebrow, cynicism returning her walls in place, the only thing remaining was the blush. A bit of blood to match her lips. To match Albus’ heart that always struggled with right and wrong.
------
Albus read on and on, chapter after chapter. Clara was sprawled on the mat in front of the fireplace, while Albus read on and on from any book he fancied. He had joined her on the mat, the two of them side by side with their toes warming in front of the fire. Soppy, domestic, sugary enough to spoil your teeth. They laughed at that, secretly, sharing it only with codes and undertones.
For months it had went on and they preferred his private quarters than his office, with all the portrays keeping guard.
Clara had not asked again yet. And when he ushered her to his rooms, with a secret smile and blue eyes twinkling challenge at her to refuse, she had come and observed and laughed. Sometimes they discussed the books or other topics, others they didn’t. Sometimes they shared news and gossips, others they didn’t. Whatever question Albus asked about her past, Clara answered. But she never asked back. She wanted to so much some times, Albus barely contained his mirth at how she kept her mouth shut and her gaze uninterested.
She could have taken him for a fool, at that point, he thought sometimes. If she was a liar, sent by someone to trick him, she could have taken him for fool. Her behaviour was too consistent, too genuine, too unguarded and spontaneous around him nowadays, that kind of thing couldn’t be faked. And Albus fell more and more into the certainty of her authenticity. Clara had dropped all pretences. He allowed himself that one simple thing, just for now. Camaraderie.
‘‘I love your voice, you know.’’ She told him, as Albus took a break and drank some water. ‘‘It’s so deep and mellow.’’
‘‘You’re raining compliments all over me nowadays.’’
‘‘You’re welcome to rain me back at any point you like. You should have gotten round to it earlier, really. You know my main diet comprises of anything that strokes my ego.’’
‘‘I’m afraid you’re wrong.’’ He sighed with every theatricality. ‘‘You have offered up yourself to me for sex, to me, twice. For sex.’’ They laughed. ‘‘And I refused you. And yet you’re still here. Not very selfish of you is it?’’ He passed his fingers absently through his beard.
‘‘Ah- Professor.’’
Albus faced her slowly and blinked at her stern expression.
‘‘We’re closer now than we have been in years. If that’s all you’re willing to give, then I’ll take it.’’
‘‘So, you say, it’s not sex you want, but this. Everything that comes with it?’’ he enquired gently.
Clara searched back. ‘‘What is sex for you? Is it merely acceptance?’’
‘‘No, it is intimacy, trust. Lust.’’ He whispered.
‘‘That’s what it is for me, as well. A good-balanced cocktail of all that, served with some simplicity on the side.’’
‘‘Was that what the stuffy German was?’’
‘‘No.’’ She averted her eyes and for once over long months, she didn’t answer his question immediately.
Albus’ hand edged towards hers. He touched it with his little finger and kept his eyes away from it. The young hand and the old withered one. He watched Clara’s face instead, how she inhaled and puffed up her cheeks, how she didn’t tense nor take her hand away. He took it in his gently and brought it to his lips. Side-glancing her, he kissed. He brought it down on his lap and rubbed it between his own.
He kept a straight face when Clara snored.
‘‘You’re a fucking princess, do you know that? Are you doing it on purpose, because I have never been sure. I mean, you don’t breathe without theatrics, but…’’ Her face softened as she searched his eyes, ‘‘were you always like that?’’
An answer for answer.
‘‘I was always more feminine than an average boy.’’ He noted her curious expression and smiled to himself. ‘‘You don’t fear that?’’
‘‘Did you just equate me to an average girl?’’ Clara wore a gentle frown at him after a moment.
Albus chuckled, his body shook. ‘‘So, deflowering. How did that go?’’
‘‘That was stupid. That was… girly. I just thought… let’s go through with it and be done. Let’s see if I’m wrong, let’s see if that kind of thing suits me in the end.’’
‘‘And did he had to be a stuffy German?’’
‘‘He was just handy.’’ Clara chuckled. ‘‘Anyone would have done. It…’’
She paused, her eyes searching ahead to the lively flame, her mouth working around words that he had pressed her to give. Albus squinted, as if to not lose any moment of it.
‘‘It was you I wanted.’’
The words came out in such a silent whisper that Albus saw them falling from her lips more than heard them. He wasn’t surprised; he had guessed as much.
‘‘Oh, shut up.’’ Clara averted her eyes, her face hardened.
Yes, he had guessed as much, but the question was, how much of this was just a schoolgirl’s crush on her teacher?
‘‘I knew you’d be suspicious of this.’’
‘‘I didn’t say anything.’’ He replied calmly.
‘‘You don’t need to.’’
Albus met the ageless brown again. He didn’t need to. How superficial can something like this be, in the end?
‘‘Sleep with me tonight.’’
Clara’s expression fell quite comically, Albus couldn’t help but smile.
‘‘I have a big bed… Very big.’’
And cold.
‘‘Four people can sleep abreast and they won’t even touch each other.’’
He addressed his afterthought to the fire. The longing in his gut scared him still, well, good to know.